Posted by dahsdebater on 5/2/2011 2:17:00 PM (view original):
You don't have a problem with it? It's already been brought up in this thread that after America was attacked on 9/11 we were utterly appalled at the videos of celebrating in the streets in the Muslim world. Let's keep in mind that they have the opposite perspective to what we do. They see America as evil and pushing our culture of evil on the rest of the world. Go grab the most recent "That's What I Call Music" and tell me they don't at least have a little bit of a point... Regardless, the point is that after 9/11 more than anything they were celebrating the fact that America was no longer an untouchable power. They weren't so much celebrating the deaths of individuals as the fact that America had been successfully humbled. And we were utterly disgusted. Now we're celebrating in the streets directly because an individual human being has been violently killed. How is that better? How do you think this looks on video to the people who saw Bin Laden as a holy crusader? We have this set image of ourselves as the good guys and them as the bad guys. From the most objective perspective that's probably true, but there's definitely enough gray area that you shouldn't ignore the opposite view. The reality is that our military actions in the Middle East over the past several decades have led directly and indirectly to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Keep this in mind. Bin Laden was motivated by the honest belief that he was doing what God wanted and fighting evil. Any decent psychologist will tell you that this man was not a psychopath. Psychopathy inherently precludes the levels of planning and organization he achieved over the period he achieved them. You don't see psychopaths with large numbers of followers because it ultimately becomes clear to everyone around them that their true motivations are deranged; that is not the case here. All the members of Al Qaeda think they are doing God's will, to the extent that many of their attacks - including the 9/11 attacks - are suicide missions. We thought we were doing the right thing by overthrowing a terrorist-sympathizing government in Afghanistan and attacking Al Qaeda and anyone we suspected of supporting them ruthlessly. It's not THAT different.
Again, I'm not saying we didn't do what we had to do. I'm not saying we shouldn't have found him and killed him. But it's not something to be celebrating in the streets. It's not something we should be celebrating at all. We were utterly APPALLED when the Muslims celebrated the fact that we were shown to be vulnerable. There's no way to get around the fact that we were straight-up celebrating the fact that a man they see as a hero was shot in the face. How does that look? If anything, it's worse. Anyone trying to justify it is just utterly refusing to make an honest attempt to see the world through the eyes of a Middle Eastern Muslim.
First and foremost, the people who saw bin Laden as a holy crusader had already formulated their opinions of this nation. Those viewpoints were forged well before the events of the last 24 hours through brainwashing and fanaticism. You pretty much answer yourself when you point out they feel they're doing God's will. In making that observation, you acknowledge that their hatred runs deeper and their motivations are entrenched on a level than surpasses anything that can be conveyed through a television broadcast. Do you honestly think seeing or not seeing American celebration of bin Laden's death mattered to that group? They hated us before last night and, surprise, they still hate us! Celebration...silence...doesn't matter one doggone bit -- either way, their so-called "holy crusader" is dead and that fact alone would have stirred their hatred.
As for celebrating -- Americans aren't JUST celebrating the death of a man. They're celebrating an episode of closure nearly a decade in the making. Undoubtedly, some/many are rejoicing the death of the man, but to claim that's "all" we're celebrating today grossly misrepresents the magnitude of 9-11 on the nation's conscious. There's a reason the family members of 9-11 victims are speaking today with a tone of genuine relief in their voices. This is something those folks NEEDED in order to move on. I think for many of us that lived through 9-11, we, too, needed this moment to begin the process of "moving on" from this episode. I'm not saying this ends the War on Terror, but this was a necessary hoop that we had to pass through in order to turn the page. If all we're celebrating is the death of a bad man of Arab descent, how do you explain the events of the last 24 hours compared to the absence of such following the capture/execution of Saddam Hussein?
Finally, I think there's a false parallel being made. There is a HUGE difference between gathering in the streets to rejoice in the capture/death of a mass murderer responsible for the death of 3,000+ civilians and gathering in the streets to celebrate the deaths of those very same civilians. The slaughter of innocents should be viewed as wrong, regardless of whether one is American, French, Japanese or, yes, a Middle Eastern Muslim. Anyone with an honest desire to be part of a civilized and orderly planet should be able to draw that distinction. You hear as much from several Muslim countries today as leaders in Turkey, Indonesia and Yemen, among others, applaud the events of the last 24 hours.
You ask us to consider how we think the images of the last 24 hours appear to bin Laden's supporters -- I ask why? What productive ends are achieved by trying to see the world through the eyes of an organization like Hamas, which today denounced the US attack on bin Laden? Folks of that ilk have already made their intentions and goals quite clear. Trying to ascribe rational thought to irrational individuals is a doomed exercise.